


Stranger Than Fiction, Better Than Art

by RinAngel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Bad Ending, Bad vibes, Character Death, I really don't know how to tag this shit my dudes, Idols, Just know that this story will probably make you feel bad, Loneliness, M/M, Mental Instability, Psychosis, Sci-fi if you squint, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RinAngel/pseuds/RinAngel
Summary: I'm more true than real.At least to Doyoung, this makes perfect sense. Taeyong isn't real by any physical means; in fact, the other NCT members see him as a necessary evil, the perfectly crafted CGI gimmick that shot their group, for better or worse, into the public eye. But he fills up Doyoung's heart in a way that nothing else ever has and makes the idol life almost,almostworthwhile.Does that make him crazy? If so... maybe he'll just take that strike against him, because the insanity completes him.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Moon Taeil/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 39
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so first of all, WHEW. My friend and I brainstormed this plot just HOURS before SM announced aespa's CGI-dol concept, which is a MINDFUCK. Knew I had to get it done now because it's _fucking topical._
> 
> All of the background is supposed to be clear from the story, but if it's NOT clear (because I'm bad at world-building): this fic takes place an unspecified number of years in the future, in a time when quarantine/environmental issues are out of control, hence things like fanmeets and live concerts are now obsolete, AND CGI is just magically good. I know there's some plot holes in here; ignore them and focus instead of Sad Boi Doyoung pls. I love him.

They looked good together. Doyoung noticed it whenever their faces were together onscreen, which was often enough, given that Taeyong was supposed to be his roommate. He would film sitting at the single desk in the room— sometimes singing covers with his guitar, sometimes reading fan questions and comments, but most often these days, simply chatting back and forth about their experiences in this crazy thing called NCT.

_ “It’s— 10:58 PM,” Doyoung stated, rubbing his eye carelessly. He’d be taking off his makeup before long, anyway. “And we just got back from the photo shoot for our new album.” _

_ “It turned out really cool! I really, really want to talk about it, but… Doyoungie, how much are we allowed to say?” _

_ “Better safe than sorry,” Doyoung stated after a beat of silence. “We’ll just say this: it’s a way cooler image than we usually show. Kind of sexy.” _

_ Doyoung glanced up and off camera for half a second. It was painfully obvious to him on a rewatch, and probably obvious to the other members too, that Doyoung was taking cues from a staff member. It was weird to film solo with Taeyong, it always was. _

_ A moment later, Doyoung got to his feet and stepped off-camera to change; Taeyong reached for the camera and quickly swiveled it towards himself to preserve Doyoung’s modesty, muffling a snort of amused disbelief. His dark eyes sparkled, his soft, full lips displaying impossibly white teeth, and the only imperfections on his face were the laugh-lines that formed in the corners of his eyes. Taeyong was beautiful, inhumanly beautiful. _

Taeyong wasn’t human. And Doyoung felt strange and awkward filming those silly little scenes by himself, but he could be hypnotized watching them back. Taeyong wasn’t real, yet sometimes he felt as real to Doyoung as he must have felt to the fans.

“Why are you watching that?” Yuta sounded more perplexed than anything else as he took the seat beside Doyoung, peering over his shoulder at his phone screen with barely concealed distaste. They were in the SM staff cafeteria, one of the few places they could go to grab food when they were tired of cooking— otherwise, it was limited to whatever delivery places were open. They had very strict rules about when and how many of them could appear in public at once, not only due to the quarantine restrictions, but because the public knew them as six when they were, in fact, five. Taeyong had a bad immune system. That was the story that they’d given to their fans— but with face-to-face fanmeets and hi-touch events banned, and with a close team of staff, it wasn’t as hard as it seemed to keep their secret.

“I don’t know. Just wanted to see how it came out,” Doyoung mumbled, locking his phone instantly and setting it facedown on the table as he stuffed his mouth with another bite of food. Promotions meant salad, chicken, and fruit, no rice, nothing fried. Not that Doyoung had enough focus to taste it anyway; he was so tired from the day spent in the recording studio, his cheeks sore from plastering on his exaggerated camera-smile.

“Creepy,” Yuta declared, dousing his salad in low-calorie dressing. Doyoung’s heart sank, his shoulders stiffened, and when Yuta had swallowed his first bite, he explained himself with a little laugh: “I can’t believe he has more fans than all of us. He looks so creepy. Like— so perfect he can’t be real, like his face is made entirely of silicone.”

“Can we not talk about work?” Taeil nearly demanded, taking the seat directly across from Yuta, the middle of the rectangular table on the opposite side. “Can we not talk about work, for like…  _ ten minutes?” _

Doyoung and Yuta both knew enough to shut their mouths when the eldest gave an order. In the pre-Taeyong days, Taeil had been their leader, and— well, Taeil still functioned as their leader, except he got none of the fan recognition for it. Yuta shrugged, apathetic, and shook his Airpods out of his pocket; Doyoung, like usual, couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he looked down at his plate and picked at his food in silence. Kun and Johnny took the seats at the far end of the table, predictably, and Doyoung was left sitting across from the only empty seat.

Discreetly, he set his chopsticks down and picked his phone back up. Carefully, he angled his body so that Yuta wouldn’t be tempted to look at his screen anymore, and he pressed play again.

_ “Doyoung’s still stuck in the photoshoot. He literally can’t keep his clothes on,” Taeyong teased, eyes focused beyond the camera. Yes, he was supernaturally perfect, but his eyes sparkled so realistically in the bedroom light, dark and deep like a mocha cappuccino. _

_ “I’m so tired! I just want to sleep!” Doyoung could be heard protesting off-camera. And then, his one ad-lib, which he was certain would have been cut out by the editors: “Can I borrow your pajamas? I need to do laundry, Yongie.” _

_ Taeil, Yuta, Kun, and Johnny were always told to stick to script when it came to Taeyong. Especially when there were multiple members in a shot, it was too easy to fall into chaos— but with just Doyoung and Taeyong, there was a little more freedom. _

_ “Yeah. Wear that blue hoodie on my bedpost. It looks the cutest on you,” Taeyong said casually before his eyes focused in on the camera; he went silent, fixing his baby-pink hair and puffing his cheeks in concentration. “Doie looks good in blue,” he said at last, smiling. “I like it.” _

_ Doyoung stepped back in frame, wearing the blue hoodie that he’d been handed by his manager and a pair of track pants, in the process of removing his makeup with a wipe. “Take off your makeup, too, hyung,” he murmured, setting the package on the desk between them. “If you don’t wash your face, you’re going to break out.” Back on script. He’d been saying Taeyong’s lines in his head as he waited to speak again, but it was nice to hear out loud: _

_ “Aren’t these my makeup wipes, too? Everyone, this is how our maknae is, this is how he treats his hyungs. He can’t do anything for himself.” _

_ “I like when you take care of me, though.” _

“Doyoung!”

Doyoung locked his phone screen again, killing the audio in his headphones and glancing up at Yuta in trepidation. “Can you repeat that, hyung? I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t eaten anything. We have dance practice in ten minutes. What the fuck are you doing?”

“I… don’t know.” He’d been holding his chopsticks the whole time, but hadn’t exerted the effort to lift a single bite of food to his mouth. At once, he took another large bite of his chicken, keeping his head lowered.

“You’ve been out of it all day,” Kun pointed out— a valid observation. “Are you sure you’re okay to dance?”

“He has to be. MV shoot is in three days,” Taeil answered for him, standing up with his empty plates to go dispose of them. Yuta followed, leaving Doyoung alone with Johnny and Kun both staring at him like there was something pathetically wrong with him.  _ Bless his heart,  _ they seemed to say in unison, and Doyoung did his best to pretend that he was the only one there.

The empty chair across from him was the loudest one at the table. It  _ pulsated  _ with the obviousness of its vacancy, and once again, Doyoung wished he hadn’t thrown himself head-first into this insanity.

//

_“Taeyong is the future of K-pop— the world’s first perfect idol. Infinite musical capability. Endlessly customizable appearance. The ability to work 24/7 and the sense to keep his mouth shut unless his company tells him otherwise.”_ Lee Sooman had chuckled at this, and a few of his supporters in the boardroom grinned and laughed, as though their CEO was _so clever._ _“So far, all of our focus groups have ranked Taeyong a huge success— 38.6% of participants ranked him as their first preferred member out of the lineup, compared to the second most preferred member, Johnny, at 23.8%. His voice, though digitized, sounds highly natural in both speaking and singing.”_

So Taeyong was shaped from their faces, specifically crafted in a way that the CEO had described as an  _ homage _ to the others’ hard work. It had taken  _ days _ for the five of them to take all the reference pictures they needed, every conceivable angle and facial expression, everything so precise— but it had been worth it, in Doyoung’s opinion, when he’d first seen Taeyong’s concept photos. Sometimes his eyes were Yuta, sometimes his sweet smile was Kun, or his wolfish grin right before he laughed was shades of Doyoung, but for the most part, he wasn’t any one of them. He was all of them, and he was  _ himself,  _ an enigma of a man who seemed too perfect to be real.

And his  _ voice. _ Johnny had an American accent, Yuta had a Japanese accent, Kun had a Chinese accent, and Taeyong had none of the above. He didn’t speak uncertainly like Doyoung, or bluntly like Taeil. He spoke like  _ Taeyong,  _ from his first digital breath.

_ “Our Doie… you wouldn’t think he suits being the maknae, but he’s so cute when we’re alone. I’m an only child in my real family, but— we got so close all at once. I’ve really come to love Doyoung like a little brother.” _

It was from a script, just like so much of the K-pop industry was, every word formulated in order to entice fans’ attention and devotion. Doyoung had always thought that he was above such things, until the perfection that he craved was right in front of him, staring him in the face— and all at once, he found himself falling in love.

//

The SM company building was attached to the dorms these days, for ease. Between the quarantine and the Seoul air quality, which had been declining since decades before Doyoung’s birth, it was easiest to avoid going outside, but NCT had a more pressing reason, too.  _ Enough _ people knew their dark truth amongst the staff for it to be dangerous, and if that truth got out to the public, everything would change.  _ NCT: five complete nobodies and a CGI Frankenstein. _

Doyoung spent 90% of his time in one building, sitting under artificial lights, breathing purified air, with the same rotation of high-security staff working alongside him month after month. It was a lot to handle,  _ a lot _ at age twenty-four, and sometimes Doyoung wasn’t sure that he could take it.

Even at night, it mocked him. Yuta roomed with Taeil, Johnny roomed with Kun, and Doyoung roomed with an empty bed covered in plushies five feet away. Taeyong’s side of the room served a few different functions: it was essential to any vlog filmed in the dorms, because it cemented the idea that Taeyong lived there with them, and it provided a place to stow away the massive volume of fan gifts that he received. Taeyong, funnily enough, got more letters and packages than the rest of them, sometimes than the rest of them  _ combined. _ Doyoung and Johnny had worked hard one afternoon, making a bulletin board collage of fan mail to hang above his bed, though looking at it these days gave Doyoung a nasty mess of mixed feelings.

Doyoung could hear the others fighting for the shower (not that it was much of a fight, Taeil was entitled to the first shower and he’d slam the bathroom door on any fingers or toes that tried to intrude on that), but he didn’t mind quietly waiting. Quiet moments,  _ true _ quiet moments, were rare.

_ “Doie, have you eaten?” _

_ “No, not yet…” _

_ “Tsk. Don’t get in my bed unshowered when you haven’t even eaten yet, you brat. Go take care of yourself.” _

Doyoung smiled to himself, tossing his hoodie onto the ground carelessly and burrowing into the mound of stuffed animals that was Taeyong’s bed. He pulled the blanket tight around himself, closed his eyes, breathed him in.  _ “Make me.” _

Taeyong  _ couldn’t, _ and that reality hit Doyoung like a punch in the gut, knocking a sigh out of his lungs and making the next breath that he drew particularly painful. Taeyong couldn’t drag Doyoung out of bed in the mornings like he claimed to in their Instagram banter, or kick Doyoung out of his bed when he tried to pile onto him and snuggle without showering. Taeyong couldn’t really be present for Doyoung’s all-night songwriting sessions, as much as Doyoung wanted him to be. All those blanks were filled in by Doyoung’s brain, Doyoung’s brain that somehow knew Taeyong inside and out.

_ I know what he wants. I know what he means. We live together. Who could know him better? _ Doyoung laughed aloud at this, aloud and alone, and buried his face in Taeyong’s pillow.

It smelled like the cologne that Doyoung had bought for him. 

Was that crazy?

//

No matter how crazy their schedules were, Doyoung still found himself a night owl. Inevitably, the later it became, the more restless he was; sometimes he would slip out of his bedroom once he was sure the others were sleeping, put on his face mask, and slip past security for a walk outside the building. Going out past curfew was risky, even if the more relaxed security crew was working that night, but staying inside 24/7 would make him go insane. (Doyoung worried enough about his mental health as it was. Kids who grew up without a stable family were more susceptible to all sorts of things, and he’d grown up in foster care, which was the most unstable thing he could think of.)

The living room and kitchen were uncommonly quiet at night, with even the manager gone to sleep. The television was off and the kitchen was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. It was late, nearly midnight; did he want to go out? Maybe a bit of chamomile tea would make him feel like sleeping—

The  _ beep _ of the security lock disarming made Doyoung jump, followed by the front door swinging open, and he made for the cupboard to give himself the excuse that he was just up for a drink of water. But then a masked figure hurried in, silent, dressed in all black, unidentifiable if not for his pale pink hair slicked back into a messy man-bun atop his head. He carried a single takeout bag and the mouth-watering aroma of fried  _ gyoza _ from the Chinese takeout place down the street— and before Doyoung could say a word, Taeyong lowered his mask and pressed a finger to his lips,  _ shh. _

“I was starving,” he whispered, setting the bag quietly on the table. “Do you want to eat with me, Doie? We’ll have to be quick— we have to wake up at 6 AM tomorrow, right?”

Doyoung cracked a smile, feeling a rush of elation all at once. Why did it feel like he hadn’t seen Taeyong in ages? The five of them had gotten back from dance practice as six, fought for showers, eaten their rabbit food dinner rations, and watched an episode of a drama together. (Taeyong always insisted that Doyoung sit on the end of the couch, so that he could snuggle up to his shoulder and fall asleep on him.) But fifteen minutes before the end, Doyoung was too distracted to even follow the dialogue, so he’d excused himself to his bedroom— where it didn’t feel quite so strange and out-of-place to have Taeyong with him.

“Yeah. We do,” Doyoung sighed, sitting down at the table and waiting for Taeyong to open the box of dumplings. “I’ll just have one. These things always make my face swell up.”

“Well, I don’t care if my face swells up. If the manager doesn’t see me eat it, it doesn’t count,” Taeyong declared bravely, flipping on the small light over the stove so that they could see what they were doing. He handed Doyoung a pair of disposable chopsticks, and they both tried and failed to split them silently, giggling behind their sleeves at the sharp crack of the wood.

It was silly, but it felt nice, the pure intimacy of it. Doyoung liked when it was just the two of them. Taeyong had long ago told Doyoung to speak to him as though they were the same age; none of the other members spoke respectfully to Taeyong, either, but the vibe was different when it was just the two of them. The pair of them, alone, was the purest, and he supposed that was where all of the tweets and fan cafe posts lauding the superiority of DoTae Nation came from.

“Why are you up so late?” Taeyong whispered out of nowhere. “You look tired, Doie…”

“Yeah. Not sleeping well these days,” Doyoung commented quietly, nibbling on the crispy edge of his dumpling. He’d taken a second one, despite himself. They were just too good, and he was just too starving.

“That’s not good, babe.” Taeyong’s brows furrowed, and when Doyoung didn’t acknowledge him, he reached across the table to touch Doyoung’s idle left hand. “You’re going to burn out if you’re not sleeping. Do you want to sleep in my bed with me tonight?”

Taeyong existed for all of them,  _ of _ all of them, but at times like this, it felt like he existed for Doyoung and Doyoung alone. He hated that feeling as much as he relished in it.  _ I’m not supposed to feel this way— _

“Hey,” Taeil’s harsh whisper from the kitchen doorway made him jump, and Doyoung dropped his chopsticks in surprise, wincing as they clattered to the table. “Why are you eating this late? We have a shoot tomorrow morning. You’re going to look like shit.”

Instinctively, Doyoung shrank himself into Taeyong’s side— just about falling  _ through  _ him and making Taeil snort in dry amusement. The eldest always felt like he was one wrong word away from snapping on Doyoung, but something about Taeyong’s presence made that a little easier to take. Taeyong’s fingers linked with Doyoung’s, discreet but reassuring—  _ I’m here beside you, _ he said without saying.

“We were hungry,” he answered, coolly, but Taeil didn’t acknowledge it.

“What goes for one of us goes for all of us. Don’t know why you think you’re too special to follow rules,” Taeil grumbled, reaching out anyway to pluck the last  _ gyoza _ from the container with his fingers before going to the fridge for some water, probably his original intention. “Go to bed.”

“Okay. Sorry, hyung,” Doyoung answered weakly, taking the bag and the styrofoam container to shove down to the bottom of the garbage can, hiding all the evidence.

“We all pick and choose what rules we want to follow,” Taeyong quipped back— again, to no acknowledgement as Taeil turned his back and returned to his bedroom. “At least I have you to break all the shit rules with me, Doie. Otherwise I’d go crazy in this place.”

_ You’re telling me. _

They returned to their room together, and as they often did these days, Doyoung got himself comfortable in Taeyong’s bed before the elder slipped in beside him. He was thin and delicate everywhere, bony in places, but intoxicatingly warm and sweet with the scent of fading cologne. He pressed his face shyly into Taeyong’s shoulder, shamelessly succumbing to the desire,  _ immersing  _ himself.

“You’re so precious.”

Doyoung wasn’t sure if Taeyong actually said the words; it was more like they washed over him, just in time with Taeyong leaning in for a kiss that wiped his mind clean like a blackboard. No more worry, no more pain, just Taeyong filling all his senses and taking over his mind.

Doyoung didn’t find much satisfaction in the idol life. Every part of it differed so much from his expectations: the lack of true camaraderie, the hopelessness of singing music about love when he wasn’t permitted to date, the struggle of maintaining a perfect facade for fans who would only ever see him through a screen. He’d watched Taeil rationing even sips of water before trainee weigh-ins; he’d seen Yuta wake up in teary, bloody, miserable pain after getting his teeth fixed; he’d listened to Johnny on the phone, pleading with the CEO to be given permission to go home after his father’s cancer diagnosis. He’d been broken, thoroughly and purposefully broken, he’d lost parts of himself that he knew he’d never find again— but with the knowledge that Taeyong would one day fill in all those cracks, he would have gone through it all a hundred more times.

This was what he was always hearing about on the radio and the television. This was  _ love,  _ it couldn’t have been anything else, and it surpassed every one of his expectations.

//

“Doyoung. Doyoung. Fuck—  _ Kim Doyoung.” _

Doyoung had gotten so good at tuning out things he didn’t want to hear. He was in Taeyong’s arms. Why would he want anything else?

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know, but he’s got the water running. He’s freaking me out.”

Doyoung blinked. Where was Taeyong’s warmth? Where was their bed, their endless mountain of pillows, their tangled-up limbs? It was like being dumped out of a safe haven and into hostile territory: the artificially bright bathroom, water running full blast into the sink, staring at his red-eyed doppelganger in the mirror and wondering—  _ what the fuck. _

“Kim Doyoung,” the voice outside the door changed suddenly, from Kun to Taeil. “If you don’t open the door then we’re going to take it off the hinges, and manager-hyung will  _ flip out. _ Move your ass!”

“No— no! Sorry, hyung!” Doyoung gave his face one more splash to remove any traces of cleanser left behind, and turned the water off. When he threw open the bathroom door, there were three pairs of judgmental eyes on him - Johnny had joined them in the hallway to see what the commotion was - and Doyoung simply couldn’t deal with it. “Sorry,” he apologized quickly again, bowing, before pushing past them to hurry back to his room.

_ Our room. _

If he had his way, he would have climbed back into that unmade bed, buried his face back in Taeyong’s pillow, except— when he touched the blankets, they’d already gone cold, and somehow the realization sapped all the resolve from Doyoung’s body. Of course,  _ of course.  _ Taeyong wasn’t there, never had been, no matter how much his mind wanted him to be.

“Doyoung—”

Johnny’s voice in the doorway made Doyoung tense, and he quickly threw open the closet to busy himself. “I’m trying to get ready. Kind of busy, hyung.” They were just going to the practice room, so he needed something comfy— soft, stretchy sweatpants and his favorite of Taeyong’s hoodies, technically a fan gift but one that he’d just about taken on as his own.

“Why were you sleeping in this bed?”

Doyoung glanced over his shoulder; Johnny was staring down at Taeyong’s unmade bed, the indented pillow, the mess of plushies kicked onto the floor. The older man’s bewildered, judgmental eyes taking in their little love nest made Doyoung tremble, overcome with a moment of sickness.

How  _ make-believe _ could Taeyong be when he’d kept Doyoung so warm the night before?

“Because—” Doyoung finally found his voice as he hid himself behind the open closet door, shedding his pajamas. “We’re doing a video later. I make my bed. Taeyong doesn’t.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” Johnny affirmed, but he didn’t move from where he stood, seeming to need another little moment of silence to digest it all. “This concept is really taking its toll on you, too, huh?”

_ Me, too? _ Doyoung only peeked out at him, questioning, waiting for clarification.

“I know he needs a bed and a room to keep up appearances, but I think it’s kind of scary,” Johnny went on without waiting for invitation. He stared into Doyoung’s eyes for just a couple moments more before he faltered, leaning down to pick up a couple of the plushies that had fallen onto the floor. “We have to talk about him like he exists, keep up this fake friendship… it might be good for SM, but it really sucks for the rest of us, doesn’t it?”

Lots of things sucked about Doyoung’s life, he thought bitterly, pulling on his clothes. Twelve hour long dance practices to songs he absolutely hated sucked. Their manager’s cold, loveless nagging sucked. Staying in the dorms every year, having nowhere else to go, while the others went home for New Years’  _ sucked.  _ If there was one thing that lit up his existence as NCT’s Doyoung, it was Taeyong.

“Hyung—” Doyoung had gathered his thoughts at last, and had opened his mouth to tell Johnny that he was  _ absolutely fine,  _ but those words didn’t come out. Instead— a pathetic, quivering whimper that made him feel about five years old.

“Doyoung, why don’t you stay here and rest today? We’ll be okay without you.”

“Johnny. We’re headed down to the practice rooms now. Is everything okay?” Yuta spoke up from the hallway, but when he stepped into the doorway, he wasn’t looking at Johnny; his eyes were trained on Doyoung in his disheveled practice clothes, clearly looking for evidence of his breakdown. Even in his own damn group, he felt like a zoo animal on display sometimes. If not for Taeyong’s hands on his shoulders, he was certain he would have either lashed out or broken down crying.

“Everything’s fine,” Doyoung insisted, despite the quiver in his voice, sitting on his  _ own _ bed to put on his socks. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s just— really hard to get going this morning, that’s all.” Glancing up, and sounding rather convincingly put-together for once, he asked, “Johnny-hyung, is there any breakfast left? Something I can eat while we walk downstairs?”

“I—” His eyes narrowed a little, his brow twitched, but then he answered lowly, “I’ll put down some toast for you.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Johnny’s footsteps retreated down the hall, taking Yuta’s with them, and Doyoung could finally breathe again. Their bedroom was a sacred space and Doyoung liked it empty. The energy was best that way.

“Yongie,” he whispered into the silence. No answer, naturally, but saying his name felt good. He stood up to leave, but not before grabbing Taeyong’s pillow and burying his face in it just one more time— the scent of cologne was fast fading, and he grabbed Taeyong’s bottle from its hiding place behind the TV, giving everything one more quick mist.

//

_ “Yesterday, we went to Jeju for the first time in a long while. We were able to see the sky. It made me think of old TV shows, how the sky looks so blue.” _

_ In the background, curled up on his bed and working on something with a notebook and pen, Doyoung breaks into a soft, pure smile. “And we got sunburns,” he reminds Taeyong, pushing things aside so he can crawl to the end of the bed and peer over his shoulder at the camera. “You can see mine on my nose. Yongie got one on his back— you gonna show them?” _

_ “Nope, they can wait until our show airs,” Taeyong declares, ears going red at being put on the spot. “Anyway… we learned about some of the current efforts to clean up the world so we can all be outside without restriction. Then we played on the beach for a bit. Doyoung said it was his first time!” He smiles, leaning in closer to the camera and using his reflection in the lens to fix his hair. The sun seems to have given him freckles, perfectly dusted over his little porcelain nose. “We get to experience so many cool things as idols, don’t we? I hope everyone is looking forward to it!” _

_ Behind him, Doyoung only smiles and hums in agreement. Even the little silences between them feel so good, so natural. _

//

The hardest thing about shooting with Taeyong, in most cases, was not being able to touch him. Touch was so all-important to the illusion they were trying to sell.

Doyoung wasn’t an affectionate person, never had been, and it made skinship for the cameras even more strange. But when it was demanded for a shoot— well, he had to slip his arm around Kun’s shoulders just as if he did it all the time, lean into the other’s embrace, and smile like they were best friends. The fans couldn’t know that once their photo set was over, they’d pull apart and walk off set in perfect silence to check out their shots and delete anything that had come out just a little too  _ awkward. _

“You guys are good at this,” Johnny commented from behind them, pointing out a  _ particularly _ adorable picture where Doyoung’s index finger was poked into Kun’s dimple. “Me and Taeil’s pictures came out like shit.”

“I don’t want them to use this one,” Kun declared vehemently, indicating a shot where he was poised to kiss Doyoung on the cheek. Doyoung was trying to smile, but looking back, he could see a pained grimace staring back at him, like the ones that had always found their way into his school photos. It was the smile of someone  _ forced _ to smile, plain and simple.

“Then why’d you do that pose?” Johnny questioned with a snort of contempt.

_ “I don’t know. _ I’m tired. Leave me alone.” The cross edge to Kun’s voice gave Doyoung a weird sort of satisfaction. The rift in NCT wasn’t just between him and the others.  _ None _ of them were close, not really. Johnny tried to get along with everyone, and Taeil and Yuta managed to sometimes bond over being the two most vocally miserable of them all, but really— really, the closest of them all were himself and Taeyong.

That felt good. Sometimes...

“Poor Yuta. He gets Taeyong today.”

“Yup.”

For vlogs, Doyoung would simply refrain from touching Taeyong, and no one was the wiser— but for more professional productions, like photoshoots, touch was unavoidable and the company had to up their game. This wasn’t the first time that an actor in a motion capture suit had been utilized: they frequently used the same dancer who took care of Taeyong’s parts in music videos, carefully selected at the appropriate 174 cm height, slim-built and long-legged. He didn’t feel like Taeyong at all to Doyoung, with his big nose and croosed smile and scruff of facial hair— but it was still strange to see Yuta joining him on-set, letting the man hold onto his arm like a long-time friend while he tried to smile. (Yuta had never been the best at selling the fantasy. His smile was looking particularly pained that day, too.)

_ “So stiff,”  _ Doyoung could almost hear Taeyong lamenting in his ear, half-amused, but pained too.  _ “I don’t think Yuta likes me, but I still can’t figure out why.” _

Doyoung swallowed thickly. There was nothing to do or say, so he simply avoided looking at Yuta and focused on the pictures of himself and Kun. One of the production staff was narrowing down the pictures to send to the editors, flipping through shot after shot on the screen. The more Doyoung saw it, the more his smile seemed wrought with agony, like he was biting back a scream. He didn’t want to look, couldn’t  _ stand _ to look at anything. With a shuddering sigh and a churning sickness in his gut, he turned on his heels towards the dressing room.

_ “Doie, where are you going?” _

“Doyoung, where are you going?” Johnny echoed, and the similarity gave Doyoung nasty chills.

“I have a headache. I need to sit down and have some water,” Doyoung answered back as casually as he could, his feet not slowing. “Come get me for the group shots, yeah?”

Truthfully, he wanted to go home, to crawl back into Taeyong’s bed, to shut his eyes and immerse himself back in a world where just one Taeyong existed, only for him, not just in his head but in his arms. He wasn’t sure how long he could swallow the vitriolic hatred that he felt before he began to vomit it back up.

_ “Are you mad, Doie?”  _ Taeyong’s voice felt like it was behind him, heavy with sadness, and it felt like a punch to the gut.

“I just need— I need to sit down,” he repeated aloud, uncertain. “I’m going to be fine.”

No response. Doyoung grabbed a water bottle but didn’t open it, and he sat in one of the styling chairs, leaning down to put his head between his knees. The aching in his stomach was familiar— empty, having not been fed since the night before, but also—  _ empty.  _ Emptiness  _ everywhere.  _ Empty life. Empty career. Empty, except when one person and one person alone filled him up.

_ “Doie, Doie—” _

“Doyoung,” Kun’s voice from the doorway rattled him out of his vacant thoughts, and he blinked himself back into reality slowly. “It’s time. Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m going to be fine,” Doyoung mumbled reflexively, like a broken record, resisting the impulse to rub his bleary eyes. “I’m really sorry. Today’s a bad day, that’s all.”

“Well— we only have schedules for a few more hours. You need to make it through. Drink some water.”

Back out on-set, the others had gathered for group photos— Taeyong’s model in the middle of the couch in the front, of course, their staff would have it no differently. Johnny and Yuta had been delegated to stand in the back row, and looked none too happy about it, while Taeil was perched on the leftmost cushion, curled up enough to avoid touching anyone at all until he had to. Seeing the single empty seat on Taeyong’s right side gave Doyoung a sudden burst of longing.

_ If there was one picture with his arms around me— _

“Can I sit?” he questioned suddenly, giving Kun his best puppy-eyes. “I’m still feeling woozy.”

“If you want,” Kun answered without much care, circling behind the couch and slipping strategically between Johnny and Yuta. If not in the front, the center was always the place to be— though Johnny called him on his bullshit moments later, protesting that the picture would look lopsided that way.

Doyoung didn’t give a fuck if the picture was lopsided, frankly. He took the seat on the couch, avoiding the gaze of the model to avoid breaking the immersion. Soon enough, this would be Taeyong, this would be  _ his Yongie.  _ He couldn’t pass up the opportunity for something real, a photo that he could hold onto and treasure. When they were called to attention, Taeyong’s arm slipped around his shoulders, and he returned the affection with a hug around the waist. He didn’t feel exactly like Taeyong, he didn’t carry the lingering tickle of expensive perfume, but all Doyoung had to do was picture his face, and the smile came natural.

//

Leaving the shoot didn’t make Doyoung feel better. Neither did dinner, which Doyoung couldn’t stomach more than a few bites of. Neither did Yuta snagging him by the wrist on the way to his room and deadpanning, “Not so fast. Manager-hyung wants us to take a selfie for the group Instagram.” Big eyes, big smile, V-sign.  _ Ugh. _ He really just needed—

Bedroom. Door locked. Curtains closed. Lights off. Clothes off, shivering in the draft from the air conditioner, and then—  _ bed.  _ Warm, soft, Taeyong’s scent in his nose, Taeyong’s breath in his ear.

_ “I wish it were easier.” _

“I wish I could—  _ fuck,  _ I wish I could see you,” Doyoung sighed, squeezing a pillow to his chest and shutting his eyes tight. He could picture Taeyong pressed snug against his back, listening to his heartbeat with his ear pressed against him. He could see the arms slipping snugly around him, the fingertips dancing over his bare stomach.

_ “This better?”  _ A ghost of a chuckle, one that Doyoung could  _ feel. “You’re better to hug than Yuta, just so you know. No one I’d rather have.” _

Just barely, Doyoung nodded.

_ “Wish it was just us. Don’t you?”  _ Taeyong’s index finger slid up his hip, and then down, spiraling over his outer thigh and making Doyoung’s breath catch.  _ “Love when you get like this. So needy. Makes me feel important.” _

Doyoung was weak from his own thoughts. Restlessly, he rolled onto his back, parting his lips in anticipation for a kiss he knew wouldn’t come. “I always need you, Yongie. When I’m not right here with you, I feel so fucking empty.”

_ “Yeah, I know. SM might think they need me, but nobody needs me like you, right, baby?” _ He couldn’t feel Taeyong anymore, which made him panic for a second, and then— his fingertip brushed against Doyoung’s bottom lip, and his mouth fell open with a soft gasp. His lips wrapped around it eagerly, his tongue circling the digit while a keening whine escaped his throat.

_ “Is this what you want?” _ The finger pushed further, just past the second knuckle, and as a second digit joined it, Doyoung focused on getting them as wet as possible. No reply needed, Taeyong could probably see the answer plain on Doyoung’s face. The longer they went without touching, the more desperate Doyoung always was, eager to please and broken by desire.  _ “Don’t worry, love, I won’t leave you empty.” _

“Please,” Doyoung mumbled, lashes fluttering, free hand twitching into a fist. Taeyong’s fingers slipped from the suction of Doyoung’s mouth with an audible  _ pop. _ Doyoung’s hand slipped down his chest, his stomach; Taeyong’s fingers slipped between his thighs and made his muscles buckle and quiver. “Please. Please.  _ Please…” _

_ “That’s it, sweetheart. Relax for me.” _

The request seemed impossible, yet the response was instant. For Taeyong, anything.  _ Anything. _ And when Doyoung woke up at 6 AM the next morning dead tired, brain fried, and wrist cramped—  _ beyond _ worth it.

That day, maybe, he’d be able to muster up a smile that felt genuine.


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you ever want to duet, Yongie?”

_“I don’t think this shithole company would let us. But… I know we’d sound good together.”_

“Wish I could hear you. Wish I could hear you right now.”

_“Can’t you?”_

Doyoung didn’t know, really. He never exactly knew anymore. It was a day off, a rarity. Taeil and Yuta had gone to the practice room anyway. Johnny and Kun had gone to the salon and then to the company’s light room for a quick dose of UV rays (all the experts were stressing the need for people to trick their bodies into thinking they’d gotten some sun). Johnny had even invited Doyoung along with them, but Doyoung had blown them both off to spend the entire day, delirious, in bed.

Kisses he could only half-feel, whispers that seemed to bypass his ear drums and flood directly into his nerves— Taeyong really was perfection, if not for the fact that Doyoung wasn’t always sure if he was really there.

“My brain’s all fucked up, Yongie.”

 _“Hm.”_ With his eyes closed, it was impossible for Doyoung to say whether or not he was imagining the nuzzle into his hair. _“Wish I could kiss it better.”_

Doyoung trembled, curling into an embrace that felt feather-light and all-encompassing, both at once. Taeyong’s arms were safety, and— had Doyoung ever been hugged like this before? Not an obligatory embrace for the cameras, not a hand clapping against his shoulder and a fake smile, but a _real_ hug? He supposed his mother must have hugged him at least once, but when he had no memories of anything before the foster home, screamed insults and the snap of a switch against his open palm—

“I’m just— _unloveable,_ maybe.”

_“I love you.”_

“You can’t love me. You’re not real.”

 _“Don’t say that, Dongyoung.”_ Nobody called him that— it was _Doyoung_ to everybody these days, Doie to Taeyong, and as far as he was concerned, Dongyoung had been left to rot in the past. That was why he’d wanted a stage name in the _first_ place. But in Taeyong’s soft voice, his name took on new life. _“You deserve love, just like anybody else. And nothing will make me stop loving you.”_

That was enough to rock him to his core. Doyoung was silent, then, for what seemed like a long time.

When he opened his eyes, at long last, the digital clock on the wall said 6:54, and the gloomy gray afternoon light had faded to near-black. But the desk lamp was on, the door was open, and Doyoung was shivering without Taeyong draped over him.

“Hyung…?” Doyoung spoke up weakly, still dazed. He wasn’t sure which one of them was there until his response came.

“Have you been in bed all day?” Yuta questioned, making Doyoung’s stomach sink. “Doyoung, the rest of us are getting really worried about you.” A brief pause, enough to make Doyoung’s skin crawl: “What the _fuck…_ Doyoung, what _is_ this?”

Doyoung sat up slowly, letting the last of his dreams fall away from him. Waking up sucked, everything always felt worse— but all of the sorriness he was ramping up to feel for himself was eviscerated, replaced by a vicious jab of anger when he saw Yuta standing at the desk, holding Taeyong’s ring box in his hands, _open._

“Put that down. That’s Taeyong’s.”

“This is the same ring you were wearing at yesterday’s shoot.” It was a statement, not a question, and when Yuta’s gaze turned on him, he couldn’t help it— Doyoung reflexively slipped his left hand behind his back.

_“You wear a wedding ring on your left hand, because it’s closest to your heart.”_

_“God, Doie, you_ would _know something like that.” Taeyong’s grin, brighter than anything. “You telling me I should wear this on my left hand, too? I want you to be right next to my heart, forever and ever.”_

“Fans aren’t supposed to mail us things this expensive, are they? I mean, common sense would tell any sane person that it’s a bad idea—” When Yuta turned to look at Doyoung, his eyes went instantly to his hidden hand, and the elder’s eyes went wide. “Let me see.”

“Yuta, get out.”

Yuta’s eyes dulled for a moment in barely concealed disbelief, before flaring with an irritation to match Doyoung’s at the informal command from his junior. “Did the company buy these?” he demanded, voice rising in a clear attempt to scare Doyoung into submission. Yuta didn’t even _need_ to yell to be scary, on a normal day; but this time, for some reason, the fierce gaze stuck on Doyoung didn’t make him shrink a bit. “Show me your hand. Show me that the company didn’t buy couple rings for you and this fucking—”

“I bought them,” Doyoung blurted out. His voice sounded clipped and robotic to his own ears, and the absolute shock on Yuta’s face didn’t change that the way it should have. “I snuck out during recording last week, and I bought them at the jewelry store near the mall. It was all me. Happy?”

“Doyoung, _why?_ He isn’t even _real.”_ Maybe it wasn’t anger in Yuta’s voice, maybe it was— panic? It was so hard for Doyoung to tell when he was trapped off on another plane of existence.

_“I said, get out.”_

“I’m going to tell the others. You’ve officially lost your mind.”

 _“Tell them! I don’t care!”_ Getting out of bed was too much work, and so Doyoung settled for the closest thing he could reach, one of Taeyong’s stuffed bears, and whipped it at Yuta. It hit his thigh and bounced to the floor uselessly, but the man was already turning away anyway, so Doyoung considered it a victory. The door slammed behind him, leaving Doyoung in solitude. Happy except for the _fucking_ desk lamp still shining in his eyes, too far away for him to turn off or even _unplug—_

A flash, a pop, and then darkness. The bulb had blown, and the perfection of that realization made Doyoung nearly scream with laughter.

_“Babe, you should go eat. You’ve been here with me all day. I don’t want you to get sick.”_

“Just— a little more, first,” Doyoung insisted, slumping back into his daze despite his hands still shaking and his eyes welled up with tears. Taeyong’s embrace was just too intoxicatingly tight, and it made Doyoung feel invincible. “Hold me a little more.” And Taeyong, without complaint, obeyed.

 _Not real, my ass._ If only Yuta knew, if only the others understood that the ring on Doyoung’s finger was actually there to _keep_ him grounded. Without it, he was sort of worried he’d float away into the stratosphere.

//

_“It’s a friendship ring, and he even bought a matching one for himself. Identical. No one’s ever given me something like this before. It was really… wow.” Taeyong sounds in awe even as he talks about it, spinning the diamond-studded Cartier ring on his left hand index finger. “I love all my members, of course, but me and Doyoung… it’s like we’re on the exact same wavelength. It’s a really uncommon sort of relationship. He’s a friend that I want beside me for the rest of my life.”_

_Taeyong’s face goes still for a moment, espresso-dark eyes shining back with the reflection of his camera. Then he smiles, giggles, throws a heart._

_“For you, Doie. I know you’re watching. I love you.”_

_//_

For some reason, the grind of promotions felt extra taxing this time around— Doyoung felt breathless, like he was swimming against a current. Yuta had become testy and aggravated even by his own standards, snapping over things like the manager’s disorganization and the long, arduous music show schedules. Johnny was rapidly losing weight, and seemed so lethargic at times that Doyoung felt like he was becoming a corpse in front of him.

During the last week of their promotional cycle, they were called into a boardroom meeting to discuss their future plans, where they were told that Taeyong would be the very first NCT member to record a solo album. All five members received the news in perfect silence, gave no reaction when his title track was unveiled, though Doyoung had to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

 _“We can reach the sky. We can take the world with one breath.”_ Long Flight was a perfect match for Taeyong’s voice, and Doyoung had no doubt that he would be listening to it over and over.

As soon as they left the boardroom, Taeil stormed for the front entrance, pushed past security, and was gone. It was the first time any of them had so blatantly broken the rules; when he returned to the dorm an hour later, his cheeks were splotchy with tears shed, but nobody was brave enough to try and console him. Johnny and Kun were uncomfortably quiet, and later that night, Doyoung could hear Yuta sobbing on the phone with his mother through the wall. Doyoung didn’t speak much Japanese, but he could pick out a few words— “I can’t” and “unfair” and “bullshit”.

“They’re just jealous,” Doyoung whispered into the pitch black of their bedroom, squeezing Taeyong’s pillow to his chest like a lifeline. “But I know you deserve it. I _know_ you do.”

Taeyong didn’t answer. He tended to disappear during the moments of highest tension, which was understandable (Doyoung wished he could do the same) but always set his anxiety on edge anyway. He only returned once the others were asleep, well past midnight, crawled into bed and pressed his teary face into the back of Doyoung’s neck.

_“I’m sorry. I love you, Dongyoung. I’m sorry I fucked everything up.”_

Doyoung didn’t think Taeyong had fucked anything up, but he accepted the apology and the kisses that tickled up his neck like feather strokes. This time, Taeyong didn’t ravish and consume him; instead, he wrapped around Doyoung like a blanket, somehow kissing every centimeter of him without a whisper of sexuality to it, and it somehow felt a thousand times more intimate.

The next day, they did their broadcasts as normal— their goodbye stage broadcasted live to their fans from their in-house stage, followed by a vlog recording with the six of them, totally scripted to account for Taeyong’s long and shameless self-plug. Afterwards, they went back to the dorms by themselves, their manager staying in the offices for a meeting, and as they gathered around celebratory cups of instant noodles at their kitchen table, Taeil was the one who brought it up: “Yuta and I were talking about this last night, everyone… our contract renewals are going to be next year, and up until now, I’d had thoughts of signing again. The money is good, but as far as our _artistry,_ SM has made it clear where they stand, haven’t they?”

“With Taeyong,” Johnny answered faintly, almost reluctantly, and there was a soft hum of agreement from Kun, who hadn’t even picked up his chopsticks. “I know. I’ve even heard from the staff that the execs are planning to debut an all-CGI girl group. The one job you’d think _couldn’t_ be given to a robot, seriously—”

“Wait,” Doyoung interrupted, with his stomach suddenly queasy and his palms sweating inside his clenched fists. “Are you saying you don’t want to continue as NCT anymore after this? Are you _serious?”_ Sure, Doyoung was disillusioned with the group, but—

“Why are you so surprised?” Yuta snapped, stabbing his chopsticks into the middle of his noodles with a hostility that made Doyoung flinch back in his chair. “Did you think that SM cared for a minute about our careers? We’re just the guinea pigs in their little experiment, and if you think they’d want to re-sign all of us _anyway—”_

“I miss home,” Kun piped up, sounding almost timid, with a vulnerability that Doyoung could barely process in the moment, with his insides tying themselves in knots. “I didn’t think I would be homesick, but everything about being here has been so _godawful.”_

The conversation melted into background noise for Doyoung: Johnny wondered if there was a career back in America for him as an actor, Yuta mentioned going back to Osaka and apprenticing in his friend’s tattoo shop, but all of it passed through Doyoung’s brain without processing. _Why are you so surprised?_ Well, why _was_ he? Had he really thought that NCT would last forever?

“What about Taeyong?” he suddenly blurted out, cutting off Taeil mid-sentence and grinding everything to an uncomfortable halt.

“What—” Taeil blinked as the words registered with him, before his brows furrowed and his jaw clenched. “What the _fuck_ do you mean, ‘what about Taeyong?’ Taeyong doesn’t _exist,_ and the company puts more stock in his well-being than ours. They don’t care about our music or our artistry. They’re _never_ going to let you record your own songs when they have a fucking hologram who doesn’t need food or dorms or a dance teacher.”

Taeil was absolutely right on all counts, Doyoung knew that. All counts but one. With his throat tight and his voice tense with equal measures of anger and fear, he corrected: “Taeyong isn’t a hologram.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, a _CGI animation._ Do you think I _fucking_ care what he _technically_ is?”

“Hyung, it’s going to be okay, don’t raise your voice—”

Kun’s little interjection was laughable by this point: Taeil and Doyoung’s eyes were locked with a resentment that absolutely scalded, and things wouldn’t de-escalate until one or the other backed down. Luckily, Doyoung had no interest in winning the argument, and he threw his chair back from the table as he stood up, food abandoned. “I can’t believe you’re all giving up on him,” he growled, making his stance crystal clear, before whirling around and stalking out of the kitchen, leaving everyone else in shocked, uncomfortable silence.

Doyoung was too restless to lay down and sleep, especially without Taeyong’s presence. He’d scattered somewhere, scared away by the conflict, and this made Doyoung just as nervous as ever. To keep his spirits up, he turned his attention to the collage of carefully arranged fan letters on the wall, reading each for what had to be the millionth time. One in particular always stuck out to him: _“Lee Taeyong, I became your fan when I was eleven years old. At the time, my mother lost custody of me and I had nowhere to go, so I was put in the orphanage. Things seemed very bleak, and some days they still do, but your voice is such a comfort to me. Please never stop singing.”_

That girl would be sixteen this year, Doyoung figured, and he hoped that Taeyong was still touching her life, making it a little more _magical._ That was one of the things he’d really come to love about his job as an idol: even if only through a screen, or a letter, knowing that the fans were there always made him just a little less lonely.

 _“Doie…”_ Taeyong’s presence slipped in gradually, like he was joining Doyoung little by little. His grip felt weaker, and when their eyes met, Doyoung couldn’t ignore the tear tracks that glimmered on Taeyong’s alabaster cheeks. He was real, he thought stubbornly, and he was _perfect_ down to the final, tiny details. _“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”_

“It’s _not,_ it’s…” It’s _their_ fault, Doyoung wanted to scream, _their_ fault for not even trying to understand. “It’s jealousy. They’re all jealous of you, they’re all selfish. You don’t need to worry, Yongie, I’m not going anywhere.” He hugged him like it was the last time he’d hug him, committing to memory every sharp edge and smooth curve, feeling Taeyong’s heartbeat. Their hearts were beating in time, right down to the _millisecond._

_“I knew you wouldn’t, love…”_

“Doyoung,” Johnny’s voice felt loud even through the bedroom door, puncturing the silence and making Doyoung start. “Can I come in? Please? I just want to talk.”

Slowly, Doyoung loosened his grip on the pillow in his arms. Johnny didn’t make him as nervous as the others did, but in that moment, they were all the enemy. Before Doyoung could think of what to do, the door clicked and slowly opened— and there they were, Johnny looking like his usual, effortlessly put-together self, while Doyoung sat cross-legged in the middle of Taeyong’s unmade bed and sobbed into a pillow.

“I didn’t say you could come in.”

“I know. I could hear you crying, though.” There was a familiarity that Johnny fell into whenever Doyoung broke down, irritating and yet strangely comforting— he could see it in the other’s weak little smile as he invited himself to sit in Taeyong’s desk chair, with his legs stretched in front of him. “No shame, I’ve been crying lately, too. I think this idol thing is havoc on our mental health— like, no human being is meant to live with this much stress for this long.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine,” Doyoung choked out, nails digging into the pillow— Taeyong didn’t complain, though, only squeezed him tight in return. “I don’t understand why you all want to disband. Where else will Taeyong and I go?”

Johnny’s smile twitched, and for half a second Doyoung thought it would disappear— but he was polite as he questioned, “You’re quite attached to the… the _idea_ of Taeyong, aren’t you? Sometimes it seems like you really believe he’s there.”

 _Don’t you dare say it._ Johnny’s words were like a branding iron grazing against him, and his first instinct was to _fight,_ but he held himself back. “He’s here. Don’t you see him?” He insisted, hugging the pillow against his chest like it was a lifeline. “You don’t understand how fucking _alone_ I am. I don’t have any family alive. I don’t have friends from school. Let’s be real, I barely have _fans._ All I have is Taeyong, and the videos we’ve made and the music we’ve written together— Taeyong is the only one who cares, hyung, so let me _have this.”_

Johnny couldn’t even keep up the facade of a smile anymore. “Doyoung— you have to tell me seriously now, are you making this all up? Because we all think—” He suddenly cut himself off, fumbling to catch his phone as he nearly dropped it off the edge of the chair. The screen lit up as he grabbed it, and he was quick but not quick enough. _“Yuta, 3:01”,_ the screen glimpsed, with the timer running up. _He’s on a call? Is he seriously—_

Doyoung had felt so heavy and lethargic that it caught him by surprise when he suddenly lunged, snatching the phone out of Johnny’s hands. “Fucker!” He said it loud, making sure that Yuta and the others could hear before he jammed his thumb onto the “end call” button. “Listen to me,” he demanded, his breaths ragged with adrenaline, his heart pounding a thousand miles a minute without Taeyong there to stabilize it. He felt like a fish out of water, waiting to be immersed back into his world where everything was quiet and warm and safe. “If this is your way of helping, just leave me alone. I don’t want or need your help. Just— just leave me alone, like you’ve been doing.”

Doyoung never lost his temper, never like this— clearly, Johnny didn’t know how to respond, eyes wide, anxious fingers balled into fists. “Give me my phone back.”

“Is that what you care about?” Doyoung glanced down at the iPhone in his hand, then back up at Johnny’s uncertain face, and with a grunt, he gave it a toss towards the open bedroom door. It hit the floor with a worrying clatter, the plastic case flying off and skidding across the wood and into the hallway. “Go get it, then.”

Johnny didn’t move. Not until Doyoung had sat back down on the bed; only then did he get to his feet, stepping quickly past him as though worried that Doyoung would grab for him. “You know—” He paused to scoop up his phone and case, checking that the screen wasn’t cracked before he finished his thought, voice shaking: “If you don’t want to be alone, there are four _actual_ people living in this apartment who have tried to reach out and be friends with you, and you’ve never once let us in. We’re still willing, but you have to come out of this room.”

For a second, Doyoung’s heart stopped. Skipped a beat, actually, but the moment felt too long, left him dizzy. There was finally a hand reaching out to him, but he couldn’t even fathom reaching out to take it when Taeyong was sitting on the bed behind him, silent and waiting.

“No thanks, Youngho. You can leave.”

And so— he did. The dark took back over, and Doyoung threw himself back in wholeheartedly. He lay back, head falling on his boyfriend’s soft thigh, the placement perfect for Taeyong to run his finger through his hair.

_“You picked me over them?”_

“Of course I did, Yongie. I’ll pick you every time.” Doyoung’s eyes fluttered closed, lulled by the very _real_ sensation of Taeyong’s nails scratching against his scalp. Underwater again; he could finally _breathe._ “You’d pick me, too?”

Taeyong hummed quietly, a simple sound that filled his heart and made him whole.

_“You and me against the world, Doie. Just like always.”_

//

With NCT so effectively _contained_ within one building, it was easy for SM Entertainment to keep the rumblings of disbandment under wraps. The negotiations were understated affairs, boring-faced lawyers dressed in drab shades of gray asking each question six different ways until they got the answers they wanted— and until a settlement was reached or a court case was called, the members were still obligated to do as their manager ordered. That meant dance practice for the upcoming year-end broadcasts, and that meant recording vlogs in the dorms like their entire lives weren’t fucking falling apart.

“Let’s get one more take of the ending,” the director mumbled behind his mask, adjusting the camera, while Doyoung shrunk down into his desk chair and closed his eyes. Normally, remembering lines was a piece of cake, and they could always be ad-libbed to make them more natural— he wasn’t sure why he was tripping up so much, but he couldn’t remember a roughly seven-minute vlog ever taking so long to tape before.

“Get it together,” the manager regarded him coldly from nearby, though Doyoung couldn’t think of why. He was the only one who _wasn’t_ scrambling to get out, he thought he deserved at least a little credit for that. “You’re barely smiling.”

“Sorry. One more,” Doyoung agreed, taking a caustic sip of his energy drink and shivering a little at the unpleasant carbonation. Unnatural, _I don’t know why this all feels so unnatural today._

Still, he sucked it up. Pinched some color into his cheeks, forced a smile that made him want to scream, leaned on the desk and pretended to read over the lyrics on the sheet while his mind conjured up the sound of Taeyong’s voice demonstrating them. _Supposedly,_ they were Taeyong’s own lyrics— though something about the way they flowed made them sound curiously like Taeil’s. _No matter._ Waiting for the cue from the director, he clapped his hands softly, grinning for a performance that had yet to come to life.

“It perfectly suits you, Yongie. Are you sure you’re allowed to spoil this much, though?”

 _“What,”_ Taeyong’s voice would say, _“Hasn’t this much been revealed yet? I thought the teaser came out this morning!”_

“The teaser comes out tomorrow morning,” Doyoung intoned, but once more his mind was drifting. _Smile,_ he reminded himself almost crossly. _God,_ though, he just wanted to finish so the staff would leave him alone. This scripted, watered-down Taeyong no longer measured up to the real voice that whispered sweet nothings in his ear every night. “Your— your fans should know how treasured they are… that you would risk getting in trouble…”

The director sighed. _“Cut._ Keep your energy up. Once more.”

 _Once more_ felt like all that Doyoung could muster. _I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this._ It made him wonder suddenly, was this the all-encompassing exhaustion that the others felt?

When they finally got a usable take and they were left to themselves, Doyoung barely had the energy to get himself to the bed. He’d had the intention of going to the practice room, or maybe to the studio to work on some songs, but maybe he’d just lay down for a few minutes first, close his eyes, try to find some willpower.

Doyoung was still and silent on the mattress for a long time, it seemed, before his phone vibrated against his chest. The only people who ever texted him these days were the members and the manager, which made him reluctant to even look. It was their day off, the members had been in a meeting with the lawyer— and whatever the news was, he didn’t want to hear it. Caring would have been too much energy.

“Taeyong.”

 _“Tired today too?”_ Taeyong’s soft little rasp against the shell of his ear gave him the resolve to open his eyes.

“Tired,” Doyoung agreed faintly, breathing in deeply to catch the faint wisp of his lover’s cologne. Tired didn’t cover the cold, listless apathy. He didn’t care about anything _out there_ anymore. Everything that mattered was there in bed with him. He blinked at the ceiling, letting his cold tears run directly out of the corners of his eyes and back into his hair. “Yongie, I think they’re leaving. I think NCT is over, and I can’t—”

 _“I can’t exist without you, Doie. I’d rather die.”_ They were the exact words that Doyoung had been ready to say, and they left Taeyong’s mouth with such uncharacteristic desperation. Doyoung couldn’t keep from reaching for him and touching every part of him: his soft and conditioned hair, the unshaven roughness of his cheek, the firm muscle of his shoulder— nothing sexual or even sensual, just tracing, feeling, as if for the last time.

“I wish we could run away together, Taeyong.”

Taeyong’s eyes were so pretty, bright and brilliant with hope, even though there was none. _“I can’t run away with you, but you can stay here with me. You can always stay here with me. And I promise, Doie… from now until the end of time, I’ll give you all the love you deserve.”_

“I can… stay.” The vagueness, and yet— _the finality._ The other members _would_ eventually leave, whether or not they won that lawsuit. It was only a matter of time, but eventually, every group eventually disbanded. But while Yuta and Taeil and Johnny and Kun wandered away from NCT, away from Korea, their songs to become forgotten relics… Doyoung and Taeyong, they would stay. For an eternity, if they could, Doyoung thought with a smile.

An eternity just like this, never again to be lonely. Just himself, Taeyong, and the fans. Really, _really,_ it was all Doyoung had ever wanted.

And so he said yes.

//

 _“The truth is, I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do for the four of you unless SM agrees to a settlement. This contract might not be advantageous to you, but it’s all perfectly legal.”_ The lawyer’s words hung in all of their ears when they got home that night, souring the mood as they ate, just the four of them— Doyoung locked away in his room as usual, their manager so angry at their betrayal that he’d stayed to eat dinner in the SM offices. What was there to do, then, but finish?

One more year. Not ideal, but Kun could deal with it. One more year, and then— maybe he had enough pull for a music career in China, a _proper_ music career, without having to kiss boys on camera for attention or vlog with a CGI amalgamation of their faces.

The energy was still low the next morning when they dragged themselves to the kitchen to eat. Word would spread around the staff about their rebellion; some would respect their bravery, some would probably give them the cold shoulder. If nothing else, the final year of NCT would be _interesting._

“Doyoung probably thinks we’re disbanded this morning. He never even read my message,” Johnny noted dryly, looking at his phone while he jabbed his spoon into his cereal. “Who wants to go get him and break the news?”

“Go and get him? We have to leave in fifteen minutes, and nobody made sure that he woke up?” Taeil demanded in exasperation— his first words of the morning, as far as Kun could tell. He looked at the three of them expectantly, and receiving no response, he rolled his eyes and got to his feet. _“Christ._ I’ll be right back.”

One more year, _could_ Kun deal with it? He could just blow his brains out, he thought sardonically, keeping his eyes to himself and his face as neutral as he could. God, he hated these people, couldn’t fucking _stand_ them.

Taeil’s footsteps coming back down the hall, brisk and business-like, pulled Kun out of his half-hearted little fantasy. “Where’s manager-hyung?” He demanded from the kitchen doorway, but the usual vitriol was gone from his tone— it was flat and dead in a way that made Kun instantly sick to his stomach. He looked up into the leader’s face, his cheeks pale, forehead broken out in a thin sheen of sweat.

“He’s in the bathroom, I think,” Johnny answered impassively, still zeroed in on his phone. “Why? What’s up?”

“Shut up. Everyone stay here,” Taeil ordered bluntly, disappearing again. His knuckles thumped clumsily on the bathroom door, and his thoughtlessly informal speech as he demanded the man come out only cemented the realization that something was very, _very_ wrong. Yuta seemed to have sensed it too, standing up but remaining in his place, wringing his hands nervously.

“Hyung said to stay,” Johnny noted, but he craned his neck to try and peer down the hallway.

“I know, stupid, I’m not—”

 _“Am I sure?”_ Taeil’s voice pierced the quiet morning with a bone-chilling desperation— it was a sound that would haunt Kun’s dreams for months, but in the moment, it was terrible enough. _“Of course I’m fucking sure! He’s dead! Everything’s covered in blood!”_

“Fuck—” Now it was Johnny’s turn to stand up for no reason, poised to jump into action, but with no purposeful action to make. Kun, on the other hand, couldn’t bring his knees to unbend. His brain was so overloaded, it had to temporarily shut down communications with his body in order to cope.

 _Doyoung is dead. We all knew he had issues— Johnny thought he was going to wring his neck the other night, but—_ Out of everyone, Kun had always imagined Doyoung to have the purest intentions in the group. He was awkward, sure, but he’d lived for the music and the stage. _And Taeyong,_ according to Johnny, but Kun still had a hard time believing—

When Taeil returned this time, he was shaking, and Yuta could no longer stop himself from swooping in behind him and helping him to sit. “Hyung— just breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

 _“It’s not going to be okay, he’s fucking dead,”_ Taeil sobbed, shoulders slumped and fingers knotted in his own hair. Infallible Yuta was taking deep breaths to keep from emoting; Johnny was beginning to pace. Kun just sat, frozen, like marble. “I think he cut his wrists,” Taeil went on, trying to speak faster than his tongue was able, breaths coming stilted in between words. “Or his throat, I— I couldn’t tell. We were literally— _we were a room away, and he killed himself, and he didn’t say a goddamn word!”_

“If you’re trying to make yourself feel guilty, don’t,” Yuta spoke with surprising conviction, arm tightening visibly around Taeil’s shoulders. “We tried to help him, hyung, we tried a _lot._ If anyone’s at fault, it’s this madhouse of a company that drove him to off himself in the first place.”

 _Off himself._ Kun suddenly hated the way that Yuta had phrased it, so casually. Doyoung had simply _offed himself,_ going from living, breathing, thinking, _shining_ to an empty, desolate shell. And it was the company’s fault, yes, the company.

Kun’s mind conjured up the grizzly image of Taeyong’s long, thin fingers curved around the knife blade, just for a moment— and suddenly, it was all too much. Without a single interjection, Kun jolted to his feet, stumbled to the bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet in time to toss up his breakfast. Everything gone, all empty, all except for that image that would stick with him for the rest of his life.

Taeyong was all of them, and maybe all of them had held the blade.

//

There were good days and bad days, but little by little, the good days were coming to triumph.

The first days after Doyoung’s death were the worst. SM told them to stay put in the dorm, but none of them could stomach the idea, not for a single day— they’d opted to blatantly disobey their company, leaving in the night with luggage in-hand to find a hotel. While Johnny and Kun snored away in one bed, oblivious, Yuta huddled next to Taeil in the other and listened to his unsteady, uncomfortable breaths. Poor Taeil. _Poor Taeil._ Yuta wasn’t a fan of skinship, but inexplicably, he couldn’t resist the urge to hug him. Stiff, stiff as always, but—

_“I knew he’d gone crazy, and I didn’t care. I didn’t care enough about my own members. When did I become a fucking monster?”_

That had been the worst night, the absolute worst.

Then had been the negotiations, which hadn’t been difficult, but had been painful all the same. Their contracts had been trashed at their first request, shredded into confetti before their eyes, and instead they’d been asked to sign a _new_ contract: vowing to stay out of Korean entertainment for one full year, to go with the SM story of “difference in musical direction”, and to never, under any circumstances, talk about what had happened to Doyoung with anybody else. All of them hesitated, looking at one another with tired eyes and bitten lips, until finally Yuta broke the silence: “I will if you guys will. I just want to get out of here.” That, it seemed, had been enough.

They’d all gotten what they’d asked for, in the end. Kun left for China the very next day, with the intent of finishing the university education he’d left behind; Johnny set off for America the day after, naming vague intentions of becoming an actor “or something”. He’d hugged Yuta tight, and he’d hugged Taeil tighter. “Call me when you can. Keep me updated,” he’d said, but Yuta knew that it was unlikely that either of them would.

Taeil had watched Johnny walk out of their shitty little hotel room to catch his flight, and then he’d sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of the unmade bed with his head in his hands. “When are you leaving?” he’d asked Yuta softly, not daring to look at him.

That was a good question. Yuta had mulled it over for a long while, his brain always catching on the same groove no matter how many times he went over his options, and finally, he succumbed and let it free: “I want to stay with you, hyung, if that’s okay.”

“You don’t have to stay. It’s— it’s not like I’m going to fucking _fall apart_ if you go.” But Taeil had been shaking as he spoke, and they both knew it. Yuta had never held together a falling-apart person before, but he’d failed Doyoung, and he’d be _damned_ if he was going to fail his hyung, too.

(They’d shared their first kiss later that night. It was a shitty kiss, in shitty circumstances, but it had ultimately led to some amazing kisses in the future, so he still looked back fondly on it.)

And so— maybe, for once, SM Entertainment had been on the right track. Disband quietly, nobody talk about it, except for Taeil at his three-times-a-week therapy appointments. Nobody think about it, except Yuta in bed at 3 AM, unable to sleep and suddenly stricken with an inexplicable memory of Doyoung in the brightness and sweetness of his trainee days, before Taeyong had existed. On the anniversary of his death, Yuta had even thought about sending flowers to Doyoung’s parents, but when he’d finally reached out to SM for contact information, he reached a dead end. _“Doyoung has no family contacts. Again, we remind you, you are under contract not to disclose any information about your time in NCT.”_

No family. Who had taken his ashes, then? Never mind, Yuta didn’t even want to think about it.

The second anniversary was no easier; Yuta had woken up feeling rotten, and had emailed his professors to excuse himself from his online classes, citing sickness. No matter how bad he felt, Taeil was guaranteed to feel worse, and he wouldn’t leave him by himself.

The hardest hit was between anniversaries, though. Two years and four months; it felt like an eternity ago, until Yuta saw the heavily-hyped teaser for “NCT-ꞵ” on Twitter first thing in the morning, and suddenly everything felt fresh and painful again. The sun was barely up, the light from the window was still murky and gray, but Taeil was already hard at work at his desk, headphones on and song files open on his computer monitor. (Songwriting seemed to suit him well, or at the very least, he never complained about the new direction of his career. It was rare that he smiled about it, but every once in awhile, he’d get so wrapped up in a song that it reminded Yuta of his boyfriend’s trainee days.)

NCT-ꞵ— look at the _visuals,_ everyone was screaming online, just as they had with Taeyong at his debut. _It was only a matter of time before this happened, the first all-CGI idol group,_ Yuta thought to himself bitterly as he clicked the link to their teaser photos. Jungwoo, tall and lean with a pure smile and bright eyes. Jaehyun, whose appearance seemed to be sculpted from a primer on Korean beauty standards. Mark, with a youthful face but a powerful, smoldering stare. Donghyuck, the Bambi-eyed maknae with a perfectly calculated, tell-me-all-your-secrets smile. And the two final members, eager to show themselves after _months_ of preparation— Lee Taeyong and Kim Doyoung, the only two members from the original line-up who had been brave enough to stay.

Radiant. Doyoung was _radiant_ in his teaser; perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth, eyes glittering with an extraordinary confidence that Yuta couldn’t remember seeing in life. And Taeyong’s looks hadn’t changed much, he was still just as unnervingly perfect as Yuta remembered him, but with his arm slung around Doyoung’s shoulders, he looked— _I don’t know—_

“Yuta.” Taeil’s voice was so sharp and resolute that it took Yuta back at once to their NCT days, when their leader had fought so hard to make any sense of their fractured group. Instinctively, he tensed, shutting the laptop quickly and turning to meet Taeil’s dark eyes.

“Sorry, hyung.”

“Why can’t we just— move on?” Taeil asked after a moment. The fight was gone from his voice, and what was left was broken, _broken._ “I’ve been trying so hard, but when you get stuck on him, then so do I, and— I can’t live like this, I _can’t._ I’m going to lose my mind.” He turned back to his desk with these final words, hiding his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I—” Fuck, what could Yuta even say? Times like this made him want to hold Taeil tight in his arms, to use his own strength to hold his boyfriend together, but maybe he couldn’t just do that forever. “Maybe I should talk to someone, too.”

“Mm.” Taeil’s muffled response was _barely_ a response, and he didn’t move.

Yuta sighed. _I can keep holding him together for today, though._ “Taeil.” His boyfriend finally stirred at the sound of his name, and when he looked up, Yuta could do nothing but hold his arms open for him. Taeil bit his lower lip for a moment, reluctant, but he still took the bait— moving from the chair back to the bed, taking up his rightful place against Yuta’s chest. “It’s okay. You can cry, love. I’ve got you.”

“I’m done crying over this,” Taeil whispered bitterly into Yuta’s shoulder. And then, predictably, he burst into tears, because _neither_ of them were done crying about it, and they probably never would be.

Still— Doyoung had looked happy. _Doyoung had looked happy._ It was goddamn _maniacal_ to let that offer him any comfort, but it _did,_ and Yuta mindlessly took it. Doyoung deserved a happy ending just as much as anyone, he thought, his own throat choking up painfully. Maybe, in the most difficult way possible, he’d found his peace with Taeyong after all.

//

_“Doie, do you still have your ring?” Taeyong is laying in bed as he speaks, his long hair splayed in every direction across his pillow in a way that’s naturally just breathtaking. Everything Taeyong does is effortlessly beautiful, as thousands of fans have shared in the comment section. How can a man so perfect even be real?_

_“What? Yeah! Did you think I was gonna pawn it or something? You’re still my best friend.” Doyoung’s hand breaks into the frame in front of Taeyong’s face, long fingers and immaculate nails, Cartier ring glimmering in its home on his index finger. “I don’t take it off very often. I mean, we’re…_ practically _married.”_

_“Yah… I never said anything like that, don’t put words in my mouth,” Taeyong bites back with a laugh, pushing Doyoung’s arm out of the way. “This one… he’s supposed to be one of the hyungs here, but—”_

_“You said you’d always see me as the maknae!” Doyoung protests, and finally his face comes onscreen as he cuddles up to Taeyong in the bed and makes him laugh, soft cheek resting on his shoulder. “I like when Yongie babies me.”_

_“He even has the younger members refusing to call me ‘hyung’.” Taeyong grins brightly despite himself, and seemingly half-mindedly, he pulls Doyoung closer with the arm that’s not holding the camera, stroking his hair. “But you’re so cute. You get away with it,” he adds begrudgingly, the smile on his face betraying that he doesn’t mind at all._

_Doyoung looks up at Taeyong for a moment with a perfect expression— as though Taeyong is made of gold and diamonds, instead of flesh and bones. Then he closes his eyes, grabs a fistful of Taeyong’s t-shirt, and squeezes tight like he’ll never go._


End file.
